Thursday, January 31, 2013

The little town that could

If you need your cockles warmed on a winter day, read this story about Vicco, Kentucky, a tiny place with a big heart; not much money but a sense of fair play and equality that a lot of other places could use as an example.

In a former pool hall that is now the municipal building for a coal smudge of a place in eastern Kentucky called Vicco, population 335, the January meeting of the City Commission came to order. Commissioners and guests settled into patio chairs, bought at a discount and arranged around a long conference table. Those who smoked did.

The Commission approved the minutes from its December meeting, hired a local construction company to repair the run-down sewer plant and tinkered with the wording for the local curfew. Oh, and it voted to ban discrimination against anyone based on sexual orientation or gender identity — making Vicco the smallest municipality in Kentucky, and possibly the country, to enact such an ordinance.

After that, the Commission approved a couple of invoices. Then, according to a clerk’s notes, “Jimmy made a motion to adjourn and Claude seconded the motion. All voted yes.”

It’s stories like this one that remind us that every now and then, we redeem ourselves.